Chattel for the Fates
by The Readers Muse
Summary: "Just didn't seem right is all. …To leave her like this."


**Disclaimer:** I don't own AMC's The Walking Dead or any of its characters. Wishful thinking aside.

**Authors Note #1:** This is my fill for a prompt posted on LJ at the TWD_Kink Meme:_"Since I unrepentantly miss Daryl's old truck (even though the motorcycle is beyond banging) I want a fic that focuses on how it was decided the truck would be left behind/Daryl missing it/reminiscing/The last time he drove the truck.__"_ *****Rated for: adult language and adult situations.

**Authors Note #2:** Please read and review. I am excited to see what you all think. I am open to comments, advice, and constructive criticism.

**Chattel for the Fates**

His truck finally bit the dust about twenty miles past the CDC. And while he'd been expecting it for some time now… Knowing he was running on borrowed time and the ghost of more then a few broken radiator caps, the reality of the matter didn't make it anything less then _fucking_ tragic.

His prissy little bitch had always run on rust, axle grease, and pure Georgian gumption, flipping JC the automotive equivalent of the bird as she defied the odds and kept on truckin'. Chugging along with a jumbled up gut full of decade old parts and a paint job riddled through with steel plated rust. - Only thing was that after the CDC, gumption and Southern fire was something they were runnin' remarkably low on.

He kicked the tires angrily, cussin' out a blue streak that would have made even Merle himself raise a brow. Emotion rising up in a way it hadn't when the CDC had gone up on them.

- Because she had been his first truck. _His only truck_. He'd bought her off his Pa the third time the Bourbon soaked bastard had gotten his license revoked for drinking behind the wheel. Even his buddies down at the shop used to joke that she'd been his one and only love affair. - An ironic truth was that was far more accurate then any of them had rightly known. …And he planned on keeping it that way thank you very fucking much. ..Not that it really mattered, considering everyone he'd known before the world had gone to shit was probably dead anyway.

He spat a mouthful of phlegm thick saliva onto the shimmering blacktop. Forcing his eyes away from the abandoned papers and limp, blood splattered clothes that cluttered up the gutter on the road's left shoulder. - Knowing well enough by now not to look too close at shit like that. God knows nothing good ever came out of it.

He scrubbed a hand across his tired eyes, grinding dirt and grit deeper into his pores. Blinking into the glare and knuckling the back of his head as he ran a hand along the length of her hot metal side. - Skin catching in the rusty dips and sharp edged holes as he traced the wheel well with his callous roughened fingers.

He knew her from engine to bolts. Having been shoved up underneath her more times then he could count. Replacing broken parts and tweaking her from fuel lines and brakes. - And now, just like everything else in his life, he was going to have to leave her be. - He ground his teeth in frustration, blinking back the barely checked burn of something that might have just been grief. But he ignored it.

Just didn't seem right is all. …To leave her like this.

Gnawing on his lower lip he swung himself back into the cab. Turning the key in the ignition and wiggling the clutch experimentally. Only to wince a second later as the acidic smell of burnt wiring and the metallic screech of locked up gears echoed in the near silence. - On the best of days she purred like a kitten. And on the worst she sounded like a half feral tom cat yowling up a drain pipe. But_ this_ was a noise that he'd both never heard before, and didn't even want to even hazard a_ guess_ at what it might have sounded like.

– He didn't think there was even a word to describe it to be honest. Because last time he'd checked frustration and loss were words that summed up _emotions_, not _sounds_..

He was resting his head against the hot, oil slick surface of her hood, fingers pebbling across her rusty, pock-marked sides when he heard a horn sound in the distance. Signalling that one of the others had noticed that he'd stopped. – But for his part he barely even raised his head. Taking in the last spluttering purrs as the engine finally hiccuped into silence.

Another horn blared out, more insistent this time. Lilting off at the end like a question. – He nearly snarled in irritation. All but spoiling for a fight as his fists curled around her steel minted sides. Barely noticing the way his knuckles were coated in a fine layer of rusty flakes, tinting his skin with the color of old blood and long burnt sunsets.

He set his palms against her, meaning to push himself up and raise a little hell. But once again she brought him to a pause, freezing in place as his hands registered her slowly fading heat. It was a type of warmth that came from within, trickling through him in a way that the dry, Georgian heat could never equal. Draining the fight from his bones slowly, like a fresh pot of coffee to a particularly nasty hangover.

And for a long moment he wondered why they even cared. They didn't like him. He knew that. After all he'd given them no reason to, seeing no sense in getting attached and all that shit. He'd made that mistake before and had been burned for it more times then he could count. After all, he'd learned a long time ago that there was only one person in the world he could really count on. And that was himself.

Everything else…_everyone_ else, was just filler. - Wasted space and unwanted complications. Extra mouths to feed, dollar store tramps, and city folk that couldn't tell their assholes from ear drums the moment night fell. It was down right pathetic really. Even the China man had his moments, rare as they were these days. Hell, even the little one, Sophia, all mussed up blond hair and dainty baby blues had more sense in her then Shane and Rick combined. She was a tough little nut for a kid. Stronger then her Mama at any rate…

He was just about to lever himself off the hood when he heard it. The sound of the old man's rickety old Winnebago grating through a sudden downshift. - _What the shit? _

He turned on his heel, head cocked on a vicious swivel as he locked eyes with distant line of cars. Not quite believing what his senses were telling him as he watched the others angle off to the side of the road. Leaving the RV lots of room as the old man ground the gears into reverse. Apparently unwilling to risk doing a U-turn on the narrow stretch of road, and instead, began driving ass _backwards_ down the god damned highway.

He just blinked, unsure of what was worse, the reality that the old man actually doing it in the first place, or the fact the whole convoy was following suit. Making scattered little u-turns as they followed closely behind. Flying down the road with all the subtly of a compass needle swaying back towards true north.

And he couldn't help but just watch. Struck dumb and squinting against the hazy, black top glare as the whole lot of them coasted to a stop in a half circle around him. - Like a wolf pack circling back to check on a lagging member. Nuzzling and scenting against their missing brother as the pack became whole once again.

And confusion rocked him right down to the core when he realized that the metaphor seemed all too apt. Because they were fanning out around him in a way that _should_ have felt claustrophobic and threatening, only it didn't. It felt.._comfortable_. Hell, even familiar in a way he hadn't even realized he'd been craving.

It reminded him of completion. Of the kind of feeling you get when the last puzzle piece clicks home. Something he hadn't realized he'd been missing this entire god damned time. A desire lost in the years that had spanned out, hard edged and merciless ever since Mama had passed. Years where there had been no use for softness, gentle words, and comforting smiles. Merle had seen to that.

_He'd told himself he didn't need it. – Made himself believe it even.. – But deep down he'd always known it was a lie._

He didn't know what to think when the others switched off their engines. Unfolding themselves from their respective vehicles as Shane, Rick, and the old man all arrowed towards his baby's steaming front hood. Makin' noise about spare parts and half empty tool boxes as Shane cursed at the smell. Batting the air in front of his face as if by pure force alone he could rid the air of the smell of fire bleached copper and burnt axle grease.

"Don't bother. She's done." He finally commented, flipping a wide palmed hand into the air before they got too close. Effectively halting the inevitable hen party before it could even so much as form. – Hell if he needed _their_ half assed opinions to tell him what he already knew.

Rick was the one who spoke first, pragmatic as always. "Alright then, what do you want to do?" He asked, squinting out at him from underneath the brim of his hat as he gave both him and he truck a quick once over.

- And wouldn't you know it, but with that simple, rather unassuming sentence Rick hit the brunt of the matter right on its god damned head. – Because the truth of the matter was that he didn't need to stay. He didn't _them _in the same way they needed _him_. Rick knew it and he knew it. – If he wanted to, he could walk away right now.

…_If he wanted too.._

He ran a hand through his sweat stiffened hair, eying the others unobtrusively as he wiped his hands with the rag stuffed in his back pocket. Their faces were hesitant, worried, and unsure. But in spite of it all, the ones that mattered sent him a jack knifed flurry of uneven smiles as he slowly met their eyes.

– And what he saw there made him swallow hard. Because despite their too wide eyed and the grief that was still riding on the coat tails of nearly spent adrenaline, the only thing he could glean from the lot of them was _honesty_. – Reserved, but genuine all the same.

_They wanted him. Needed him. Hell, maybe they even cared. - And in the end, perhaps that was all he really needed. …Funny how it always came down to the little things.._

Not so surprisingly, it was the kid, Glenn that ended up breaking silence.

"You want shot gun?" He offered, squinting through the glare from behind the brim of that ever present baseball cap. Looking from him, to his smoking truck and then back again before he sent him a small, tentative smile from across the distance.

- Something in his chest clinched tight at that. ..Though he had no fucking idea why.

In the end he only rolled his shoulders, motioning towards Merle's bike with an awkward jabbing motion as he turned back towards the truck. Trying not to notice when the kid all but tumbled out of the RV as he joined Rick and Shane in ferrying all his shit into the other vehicles. Stripping her bare before they untangled the holding straps and hefted Merle's loud mouthed bastard down onto the litter strewn pavement.

But it was only when he gave the sheriff a discerning, but accepting nod that the man called it. - Obviously keen to put as many miles between them and the CDC as they could manage. It was a sentiment that he certainly couldn't disagree with, especially considering the haloed mushroom cloud that still rose up in the distance, standing out like a sore thumb on the mid summer horizon. - Looming down from the sky like a god damned metaphor…

_Fuck this shit._

He kicked the 71 Triumph to life, revving it up experimentally before he eased himself up to the front. Spear heading the convoy as the little ones grinned out the windows, waving their slim little fingers at him as he passed. - He held back a grudging smile at that. But only just.

Weaving slowly around Shane's jeep and Carol's old suburban he nodded briefly to the others as he roared ahead. Fists clenching down on the handle bars a bit too hard as he forced himself to get used to height. It had been a long time since he'd ridden a crotch hog. - A long fucking time.

Emotion surged up his throat as he adjusted the side mirrors, forcing the ornery hinges to bend as he brought them down to his height. Just another reminder of how wrong this whole thing really was. Because this wasn't his bike; it was Merle's. It was meant for a frame far thicker and taller then his, with the mirrors angled for Merle's comfort, not his own…

_And really, what right did he have to change that? _

But just as he moved the left side mirror, nudging it this way, then that until he'd found the perfect angle. His eyes caught the prism shattered reflection of his old girl in the rear view mirror. Glinting and twisting in the high noon light.

Because instead of the dull, lifeless flash he'd been expecting, the light caught the mirror _just_ right. - And instead of loss, anger and a hundred different emotions he didn't even have it in him to define; it was the reflection of the convoy stretching out behind him that she gave him.

-One last hard won lesson she figured he had left to learn. _That he wasn't alone_. He never had been. And while it wasn't going to be perfect, it was _something_… - Something that could be molded and reworked, something that given time, could be made into_ more_ then just blood flecked skin and the smell of death. Something more then the reasons why there were scars carved into his skin or why he sometimes forgot how to smile.

…Because in her own willful little way, what she was really telling him was that maybe it was time to start giving a shit after all..

**A/N:** Please let me know what you think. Reviews and constructive critiquing are love!

"_The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are." – Unknown._


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